The Arkansas Valley Alliance for Economic Development board approved a motion Thursday to send a letter to a light manufacturing company offering financial assistance, pending approval by the Russellville City Council.

The letter will be directed to a company considering occupying the former Goody’s Distribution Center facility. If the company were to open in Russellville, it would add anywhere from 50 to 80 new jobs.

The building, however, may not be big enough to fit the company’s needs, director Jeff Pipkin said.

“It’s all going to depend or hinge on whether they can make this building work,” he said.

The board voted to send the company a letter offering financial assistance if it chooses the building, possibly in the form of offsetting additional leasing periods as a result of needed expansion.

This wouldn’t be unlike the city’s assistance to Innovating Moldings when they offered to pay six months on a lease for a temporary location for the company, Pipkin said.

In other business, the board discussed a proposed one-half percent temporary sales tax before state legislature that would raise money to be used toward expanding and extending state interstates. If approved, 70 percent of the funds raised through the tax raise will go to the state highway department with 15 percent going to the cities and counties.

The tax raise would be applied to all sales excluding grocery and medical sales.